On Religion

Deborah Eden Tull, founder of Mindful Living Revolution, teaches the integration of compassionate awareness into every aspect of our lives. She is a Zen meditation and mindfulness teacher, public speaker, author, activist, and sustainability educator. She trained for seven years as a Buddhist monk at a silent Zen monastery in Northern California, and she has been traveling to, living in, or teachi...

The topic of this episode focuses on Dr. Daniel Hummel's piece, “The Limits of Evangelical Christian Nationalism during the Cold War,” which appears in the new book North American Churches and the Cold War, out now on Eerdsman Publishing. Dr. Daniel Hummel is a scholar, writer, researcher, and teacher of religion, politics, and foreign policy in the United States and the modern Middle East. Dr. Hu...

Randall J. Stephens is an Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo. He previously taught at Northumbria University (Newcastle upon Tyne) and Eastern Nazarene College (Quincy, Massachusetts). He is a historian of religion, conservatism, the South, environmentalism, and popular culture. He is the author of The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the Amer...

Are you curious about Buddhism but find yourself met with scholarly texts or high-minded moralizing every time you try to pick up a book about it? Well, if so, relax. This is no ordinary introduction to Buddhism; there are none of the saccharine platitudes and dense pontification that you may have come to expect. Buddhish: A Guide to the 20 Most Important Buddhist Ideas for the Curious and Skeptic...

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is an author, Zen priest, teacher, divine seer, artist, and Drum medicine woman. Her work has been featured in Essence Magazine, CNN, CBS NEWS, KPFA Radio, Buddhadharma, and Lion’s Roar. She holds a M.A. from UCLA and a Ph. D. in Transformative Learning from California Institute of Integral Studies. She spoke to me from Green Gulch Farm, a Zen practice center within the San F...

John Camardella teaches religion and social studies at Prospect High School in Mount Prospect, Illinois. This conversation touches on the organization, implementation, and day-to-day operations inside a high school course focused on world religions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Lancaster is an instructor of Japanese at the University of Missouri and an instructor of religious studies at Columbia College. He is a member of Bunraku Bay Puppet Theatre troupe, whose film, "Kaiju Bunraku," was screened at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Samhita Arni is the author of the NYT Bestselling graphic novel, Sita's Ramayana, (collaboration with Patua artist Moyna Chitrakar) available from Tara Books. She is also the author of The Mahabharata-A Child's View and The Missing Queen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I talked to Corey Landon Wozniak about his Revealer article (2022) "The Buddha at the Bellagio: (Teaching) Religion in Sin City." As Wozniak points out, Las Vegas (for all that it's sin city) is full of religion, all kinds of it. He talks about how religion is done in America's Sodom and Gomorrah rolled into one.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Klaassen is the pastor of Rock Bridge Christian Church in Columbia, Missouri. In September 2017, her church congregation voted to become a sanctuary church and seeks to protect those at risk of deportation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robin Waterfield is the author of numerous books about ancient Athens including Xenophon's Retreat, Why Socrates Died, Creators, Conquerors, and Citizens, and more. He has also translated the works of Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, and more from ancient Greek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is a discussion with Dr. Preston Jones about the book Is Belief in God Good, Bad, or Irrelevant: A Professor and a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism, and Christianity. Jones is the editor and co-author of the volume with Dr. Greg Graffin, singer for Bad Religion. The book was released in 2006. Dr. Preston Jones is a professor at John Brown University in Arkansas. His r...

Paul Moses, former Newsday city editor and senior religion writer, is a professor of journalism at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He was the lead writer on a Newsday team that won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of The Saint the Sultan (2009, Doubleday) and An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York's Irish and Italians (2015, NYU P...

Dr. Carrie Duncan is an Assistant Professor of ancient Mediterranean religions at the University of Missouri. She is a senior staff member on the following projects in Jordan: the Ayn Gharandal Archaeological Project, the Petra North Ridge Project, and the Madaba Plains’ excavation. She teaches courses on the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, the Jesus of history, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and more. Learn...

Mary DeMocker is cofounder and creative director of 350.org’s Eugene, Oregon, chapter. She has written about conscious parenting and climate activism for the Sun, EcoWatch, Mothering.com, Spirituality & Health, Oregon Quarterly, and the Oregonian. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Francis Stewart completed her doctoral thesis on punk rock as a surrogate for religion, with a particular emphasis on Straight Edge punk, in 2011 at the University of Stirling. Within the thesis, Stewart examined the notions of community, authenticity, integrity, DIY, and salvation. She also engaged with the connections between music and the expression of emotions, particularly those emotions...

Dr. Pablo Mendoza is Assistant to the President for Social Equity at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD from the University of Missouri and was previously the Director of the Mizzou Multicultural Center. He has taught Cheng Man-Ch'ing (Zhang Manqing) Yang-style Tai Chi Ch'uan (Taijiquan). This form is based on martial applied defensive moves that are synchronized to breathing...

As modern empires rise and fall, ancient Rome becomes ever more significant. We yearn for Rome's power but fear Rome's ruin--will we turn out like the Romans, we wonder, or can we escape their fate? That question has obsessed centuries of historians and leaders, who have explored diverse political, religious, and economic forces to explain Roman decline. Yet the decisive factor remains elusive. In...

Michael Downing teaches creative writing at Tufts University. This conversation features a deep dive into Michael’s nonfiction book Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center, hailed by the New York Review of Books as a "dramatic and insightful" narrative history of the first Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, and by the Los Angeles Times as "a highly readabl...

A veteran journalist, essayist, and award-winning education writer, Linda K. Wertheimer is the author of Faith Ed: Teaching about Religion in an Age of Intolerance. The book focuses on public schools’ ups and downs as they teach about world religions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Raghunath tours the world, leading yoga workshops, yoga teacher trainings, kirtans, and the practical applications of yogic philosophy. He annually takes a group on pilgrimage through holy places of India and sometimes fronts the bands Youth of Today and Shelter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shulem Deen is a writer, journalist, and author of the award-winning memoir All Who Go Do Not Return. He is a regular contributor to the Forward, and in 2015 was listed in the Forward 50, an annual list of American Jews with outsized roles on political and social issues. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the New Republic, Salon, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. He serves as a board...

Griffin Hardy is the Communications Director for Ministry Against the Death Penalty, founded by Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Daniel Hummel is a scholar, writer, researcher, and teacher of religion, politics, and foreign policy in the United States and the modern Middle East. He is currently a Robert M. Kingdon Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Hummel is also a specialist in the concept of Christian Zionism and has a forthcoming book from the University...

Meido Roshi is the abbot of Korinji monastery in Wisconsin. In 2008 Meido Roshi received inka shomei ("mind seal"), designating him an 86th-generation Zen dharma heir and a 48th-generation holder of the lineage descended from Rinzai Gigen. Meido Roshi's book The Rinzai Zen Way: A Guide to Practice is out from Shambhala Publications in March 2018. The focus of our conversation is this book and I hi...